Urban unemployment grows (duh)

New York City

By Blake Ellis, staff reporter February 2, 2010: 10:55 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of U.S. metropolitan areas with jobless rates above 15% increased in December, according to government figures released Tuesday.

The Labor Department said 19 of 372 metropolitan areas surveyed posted unemployment rates of at least 15% last month, up from 17 metro areas in November. The metro area figures were not seasonally adjusted.

The seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate was 10% in December, unchanged from the previous month. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect the national rate to remain steady at 10% when the Labor Department releases its December jobs report Friday.

Twelve areas in California suffered jobless rates higher than 15%, including El Centro. The city continued to lead the nation's metropolitan areas with the highest unemployment rate in December at 27.7%.

The second highest rate was in Merced, Calif., at 19.8%, a rise from 18.3% in November.

Out of the cities with populations of 1 million people or more, Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich. had the highest level of unemployment, at 14.9%, followed by Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. with a rate of 14%.

Large cities with the lowest jobless rates were Oklahoma City, with a rate of 6% and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria in the District of Columbia region, which posted a rate of 6.2%.

The metro area with the lowest unemployment rate in December was Fargo, N.D., at 4%, followed by Grand Forks, N.D., and Lincoln, Neb., each at 4.1%.

Jobless rates were higher than 10% in 138 metropolitan areas in December, up from 125 in November.

Overall, 146 cities in the Labor Department report had unemployment rates above the non-seasonally adjusted national figure of 9.7%, while 221 areas reported jobless rates below it.  

I was stunned to see this: New York City's crime rate drops 11% since last year, on target for record low

New York

Daily News Staff Report

Monday, December 28th 2009, 2:29 PM

Worms in the Big Apple

Do you consider New York a safe city?

The city's murder rate is on target to be at a record low - and the overall crime rate keeps plummeting, too, officials said Monday.

New figures show the murder rate and overall crime rate each dropped 11% from last year. The only major crime that went up was felony assault, which rose 2%.

Officials said there were 461 murders in the city thru Sunday, compared to 516 in the same period last year.

Mayor Bloomberg said the figures mark the 19th straight year in which major felony crime declined.

"The numbers are staggering," the mayor told the city's  new graduating class of police recruits.

"Since 2001, we've driven murder down by 29%, rape down by 38%, robbery down by 34% - the list goes on.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said crime dropped in every borough and in nearly every category.

The projected homicide rate would be the lowest since comparable records were kept beginning in 1963.

NY unemployment rate drops to 8.4 percent for November Reading this made me feel hostile

New York

New York's unemployment rate dropped for November to 8.4 percent, the state Labor Department reported Thursday.

The jobless rate also fell in Chemung and Steuben counties from October to November but grew in Schuyler County.

Chemung County gained 200 jobs in November in trade, transportation and utilities, according to the Labor Department.

Chemung County's unemployment rate in November was 8.5 percent, compared to the 8.7 percent in October. In November 2008, the county's unemployment rate was 6.4 percent.

Schuyler County reported a jobless rate for November of 8.1 percent, compared to the October rate of 7.6 percent and the November 2008 rate of 6.5 percent. Jobs were lost in the service, leisure and hospitality sectors.

In Steuben County, November's unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.6 percent in October. The jobless rate was 6.9 percent in November 2008.

Jobs were reported lost in a variety of areas from mining and construction to manufacturing and leisure and hospitality.

In Tioga County, N.Y., unemployment was at 8.4 percent in November, up from 8.0 percent in October. Tompkins County's November jobless rate was at 5.3 percent -- the lowest in the state.

Dark New York post - New York's Unemployment Rate Falls

New York

New York state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate fell in November, according to new figured released this afternoon by the Department of Labor.

The jobless rate fell from 9.0 percent to 8.6 percent last month.

Moreover, the number of unemployment residents declined from 871,000 to 833,000.

In New York City, the number of unemployed moved from 413,000 in October to 397,000 in November – bringing the number of unemployed in the city down .3 percent to 10 percent.

The city saw 41,000 new jobs in the education and health sectors, with the biggest losses in trade and utilities.

The figures are still much higher than this time last year, when the state jobless rate in November was 6.3 percent and the city jobless rate was 6.7 percent.

The nation’s unemployment rate also saw a slight drop. It was 10 percent in November, down from 10.2 percent in October.

Experts say while the numbers are encouraging, it’s too early to establish a trend.

(Source: NY1)

Unemployment Rate Drops in City

New York City

NEW YORK, NY December 17, 2009 —The city's unemployment rate has fallen to 10 percent, matching the national unemployment rate. That's according to new state labor department figures, which show the state's jobless rate improving from 9 percent in October, to 8.6 percent last month.

Bruce Herman, deputy commissioner of the state's labor department, says even though the latest numbers are encouraging, there's not enough data to suggest an economic recovery. "What we're concerned about is the magnitude of job loss over the past year, that has put the state and New York City in a pretty deep hole, and what can be done to assist the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers that are still unemployed," Herman says.

In November, city jobs were lost in the areas of construction, publishing, and in museums. On the other hand, jobs were added in the city's education, accounting, and retail sectors.

The state fared better than the city from October to November, but the unemployment rate dropped from 9 to 8.6 percent.

The financial-services industry has shed the greatest number of jobs this year.